New England claim US international Feilhaber

The New England Revolution have claimed US international Benny Feilhaber, Major League Soccer announced on Wednesday night.

The World Cup veteran fell to the Revs after Chivas USA and Philadelphia both declined their options to claim him on the allocation order.

A UCLA product, Feilhaber signed with MLS on Friday after spending three seasons with Danish Superliga side AGF Aarhus. Per the league’s allocation order, Chivas USA had the first option to acquire the midfielder.

However, the player’s salary was the prime concern for the Goats, who will keep the top spot in the allocation order.

“This was a really difficult decision because we had to look at a number of factors, first and foremost being if we take him and accommodate his salary within our salary cap, how much is that going to limit us going forward,” said Chivas USA head coach Robin Fraser said in a statement.

“Certainly, we’re looking to address some needs on the team, and having Benny would’ve been great in our midfield because he’s a very, very good player. But the fact of the matter is his salary would’ve been so high that we wouldn’t have been able to make any adjustments going forward.”

The choice wasn’t an easy one for Chivas USA, who had three days to mull over whether to claim Feilhaber. After careful analysis, Fraser & Co. decided not acquiring the midfielder was best for the club.

“In the last 36 hours, it’s been looking at every possible scenario that we thought would benefit us, and as unbelievable as it may sound, it seemed like this was the best move for the long term benefit of the club,” said Fraser. “The summer window coming up is an important time for us and we’d like to position ourselves to make some moves that we think are going to further improve our team.”